A growl rumbled in his chest. “You didn’t tell me he was masked. That makes his presence in your room seem more premeditated. Not just a casual break-in of a guy looking for money or valuables.” Cal was quiet a moment. She could imagine he was stewing. “What about the masked man? Has he come back?”
She shook her head. Hissed in pain. “Dang it.”
“Jules?”
“The second guy. In the hoodie. Last week when the guy was murdered.”
Cal shifted to lean over her. “Yeah?”
“He hid his face, too.”
“Go on.”
She pushed him off so she could sit up and blinked hard trying to shove back the drowsy haze. “If last week’s murder was drug-connected, as you suspect, and now we think Chase is hooked up with drug dealers who seem to want to kill him—”
“Then the drug dealers have seen your face twice.”
She frowned, her gut clenching. “That’s not what I was going to say, but…yeah.”
“What were you going to say?” he asked, stroking a finger along her chin.
“Just…the guy in the hoodie, the masked man in my room could have been in that SUV today. I thought that detail might help Wyatt solve the murder.”
Cal nodded slowly. “It very well could. I’ll talk to him. Meanwhile—”
He framed her face with his palms, his blue eyes penetrating. “It tells me you could be in danger. Forget a day or two to rest. You’re going to stay here, under my protection, until the murderer is caught.”
Chapter 23
As much as she wanted to argue with Cal about his high-handed decree, fatigue tugged at her and a shimmy of fear in her core begged for the security he offered. New lock on her door or not, she didn’t want to go back to her motel. Especially if the drug dealers were looking for her. Was the attack at her motel room a one-off? A coincidence?
She didn’t know, and at this point, with the sound of the gunfire this afternoon still reverberating in her memory, she didn’t care to find out.
So she leaned into Cal’s embrace and closed her eyes. “Okay.”
“Wow,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her hair. “That’s a first.”
“What?”
“Agreeing with me. Not arguing. You may have brain damage after all.”
Jules allowed an amused hum to slide from her throat as she snuggled closer.
Taking the hint, Cal lay back down on the couch with Jules draped over him. For the next several minutes, he rubbed a hand down her back or threaded fingers through her hair, his touch soothing, mesmerizing. And soon, like Joy asleep on Pilot’s warm fur, Jules drifted off, safe in Cal’s embrace.
When she woke later that evening, the room was darker, the sun having already set outside, which told Jules it was after 9:00 p.m. Cal was no longer on the couch with her and the house was quiet.
She kicked the afghan off her feet and sat up slowly. Her head throbbed in protest, and she discovered new aches and stiff muscles throughout her body. She moaned softly as she shoved the hair out of her face and massaged the crick in her neck.
With the click of claws on hardwood and a chuff of greeting, Pilot trotted in from the foyer and put his head in her lap.
“Hi, old boy,” she said, scratching his head. “You didn’t eat Joy while I was asleep did you?”
Pilot wagged his tail, and she gave him the stink eye. “Does that mean yes or no?”
“Does what mean yes or no?” a male voice asked.
She glanced up to find Cal standing in the open arch that led to the kitchen, a drink of some description in his hand. “I asked your dog what happened to the kitten. He didn’t eat her for dinner while I slept, did he?”
